-4 PDP’s per half day session;
option for 3 grad credits at reduced cost with extra work

January 23. What Electrical Engineering Can Do for
You. Marinos N.
Vouvakis, Electrical and Computer Engineering. When asking the average
high-school student what Electrical Engineering is all about, the most probable
answer is: it deals with the electrical wiring and outlets, or in the best
case, it helps build TV sets. Although this would have been the case for the
Electrical Engineering of the 30s or 50s, modern electrical engineering is been
considerably more exciting. We will give an overview of Electrical Engineering,
and outline the basic principles behind some of the most ubiquitous electrical
engineering technologies such as the iPhone, the laptop computer, the internet,
radar, etc.

January 30. Weather
cancellation makeup date if needed

February 6. Ice, glaciers,
and oceans. Julie Brigham-Grette,
Ray Bradley, Beth Caissie,
Geosciences. Hands on explorations of remote sensing, the effects of rising
ocean levels, and changes in the forces driving ocean circulation. Melting ice
and snow exposes water and land, increasing the energy absorbed from sunlight.
We will explore ways to measure this change in the “albedo,” and will do an
experiment that models remote sensing by satellites.

March
6. Technology-Enhanced Science Activities *In Lederle Grad Towers Room 201*Frieda
Reichsman and Eric Martz, Microbiology. Explore
inquiry-based, interactive activities from the Concord
Consortium
that use dynamic models and simulations to guide students
from the phenomena
of their everyday lives to the molecular underpinnings of
life. The Science
of Atoms and Molecules Project (SAM) includes scaffolded
activities that
address physics, chemistry, and biology topics such as of
diffusion, protein
structure and function, lipids and carbohydrates, the genetic code,
chemical
bonds, and more. Mutate a gene and see how an RNA in the cell instructs
a
ribosome to produce proteins with an altered amino acid sequence.
Working
with a dynamic model, you can explore for yourself how hydrophobic and
hydrophilic amino acids affect protein folding. As they progress through
activities, students answer embedded assessments; you view or print
their
answers as reports using a teachers' web portal. All SAM activities are
free
and use the free, open-source Molecular Workbench software to examine
three-dimensional molecular models and help students experience
molecular
movements, collisions, and attractions.

March
27. Antibiotics
in the Environment.
Erik Rosenfeldt, Civil and Environmental
Engineering. Discharges
of pharmaceuticals and personal care products into aquatic ecosystems are an
emerging environmental issue. Antibiotics are of particular concern since they
may lead to the evolution of antibiotic resistant microorganisms. A simple
assay that detects activity associated with antibiotics is known as the
AntiBiotic Challenge [ABC], and is based upon a commercially available test for
finding antibiotics in meat, urine, and dairy products. The assay has been adapted
so that students will have no contact with potentially pathogenic
microorganisms and only simple equipment is required.

April 3. Science of the Eye. Ishara Mills-Henry, Biology, MIT. In the retina, photoreceptor cells translate light into electrical and chemical signals that are processed through several downstream neurons. We will discuss photoreceptor function as it relates to color vision, the proteins involved in phototransduction (signaling pathways and ion channels leading to changes in membrane potential), the evolution of color vision, and the genetics of color blindness. In the second part of the workshop, we will focus on how the processing of visual stimuli in the brain plays a critical role in vision. Many optical or visual illusions are a result of how the brain perceives what we see and studying them has provided further understanding of the mechanisms of visual perception. Hands-on activities will include aligning opsin gene and protein sequences and how optical illusions are interpreted.

April 10. Weather
cancellation makeup date if needed.

May
1. Recall for those registered for
graduate credit. Hasbrouck Lab.

Graduate
credit option: There is a charge of
$300 for 3 Continuing Education credits plus a $45 registration fee. This is
in addition to the $120 STEM Education Institute fee. Teachers may obtain
credit for the seminar as many terms as they wish, but only 3 credits may be
applied to UMass Amherst degrees. A lesson plan and a book report will be
required for those enrolled for graduate credit. Register with Continuing
Education or the UMass Graduate School for CNS 697S, ST-Contemporary Science
and Engineering II. We will have registration forms at the first seminar.